{image1} Lou Reed said that the first time he heard Antony Hegarty sing he knew he was in the presence of an angel.
And really, no matter what your degree of spiritual conviction, once Antonys unmistakable vibrato pierces the silence of a beautifully still theater, its hard not to find him a mystical, if not celestial, being.
He smiles shyly, accentuating his soft facial features, and avoids prolonged eye contact with the crowd. Within seconds, hes lost himself in the soulful vacuum of My Lady Story.
All things become still. If Adlous Huxley queried back in 1944 that time must have a stop, he might have been pleased to discover that the continuum nearly ceases as Antony crones - and also that the singer bares a similar description to Huxleys angel-faced poetic protagonist Sebastian Barnack.
Appearing pale and pretty, Antonys no stranger to the word androgyny, especially as he lyrically dances through odes to gender-bending wish-fulfillment like For Today I am a Boy and You Are My Sister - homage to his hero and friend, Boy George.
He exhibits the delicateness of a child - complete with dimples and a vocal octave range that feels both incredibly fierce and gentle at the same time. Yet unlike a child, he harnesses a lifes worth of wisdom and a mature reverence for beauty in his songs.
After a moving rendition of Leonard Cohens The Guests, in which his entire body begs, I need you, I need you, I need you, he finally feels comfortable enough to address his gracious audience.
His dialogue with us is brief but buoyant and completely self-deprecating for someone who marked 2004 -- before his acclaimed I Am A Bird Now even surfaced -- by performing at the Whitney Biennial, and 2005 with the release of one of the years most talked about albums prior to receiving the esteemed Mercury Prize for the best British or Irish album of the year (Antony was born in Chichester, England, moved to California as a young boy, and finally found himself as an artist in the downtown New York art scene.)
In a wise decision to momentarily break the trance hes created, he bursts into his new albums strong opener, Hope Theres Someone, with the haunting plea, I hope there is someone wholl take care of me when I die.
The bulk of his songs revisit this loneliness, overtly reflecting a longing for companionship and love. Although Antony admits that making I Am A Bird Now with his friends - Boy George, Lou Reed, Rufus Wainwright and Devendra Banhart -- has made feel less alone, watching him perform in their absence demonstrates their contributions to be merely extraneous bonuses, as far as his audience is concerned. In the sense that these are the people who have helped complete the image of Antony as an artist, the guest appearances are a welcome addition. But when he is seated alone at his piano, no matter how desperately his words cling to a fear of solitude, he becomes the purveyor of his own strength and beauty.
Nearing the end of his set, Antony, with his initial coyness set aside, exclaims that hes been working on a special cover song. It takes a line or two to put the pieces together, but by the time he gasps, when the night falls, its clear that he is giving Whitney Houstons I Wanna Dance with Somebody something its never had: a soul.
{image2} Opening for Antony and the Johnsons were his friends, the sisters Casady, who are better known as the neo-folk duo CocoRosie. As if an angelic presence were a prerequisite for the entire evening, one of the sisters (not sure which is which at this point) emerges in a white hood with a harp.
The next 45 musical minutes play out like teenage bible camp revisited, each song a hymnal as defiant as it is devout.
Last years La Maison de Mon Reve highlight Good Friday examines the gross commercialization of Christmas with the chorus, I believe in Saint Nicholas/ Its a different type of Santa Claus." But then 2005s Noahs Ark rebuttal in K-Hole, Whats Gods name/ I cant remember? flips the mode of transcendence from spiritual to chemical.
Whether theyve intended to or not, CocoRosie has somewhat reinvented religion for a new generation. And this time around, theyve beautifully balanced the intensity of prophetic moaning with sounds that are a little more accessible to todays youth. (Yes, those animal sounds texturizing Noahs Ark were coming from that circular toy from which we all discovered, by way of pulled string, which sound the duck makes.)
OnMilwaukee.com staff writer Julie Lawrence grew up in Wauwatosa and has lived her whole life in the Milwaukee area.
As any “word nerd” can attest, you never know when inspiration will strike, so from a very early age Julie has rarely been seen sans pen and little notebook. At the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee it seemed only natural that she major in journalism. When OnMilwaukee.com offered her an avenue to combine her writing and the city she knows and loves in late 2004, she knew it was meant to be. Around the office, she answers to a plethora of nicknames, including “Lar,” (short for “Larry,” which is short for “Lawrence”) as well as the mysteriously-sourced “Bill Murray.”
